About two years prior to the groundbreaking release of
Dealing with it,
D.R.I. was known in their home turf of Texas as a
hardcore, left-of-center, politically driven band.
D.R.I. emerged from a Texan music bed often referred to as the "vat" scene (due to the lack of practice space, bands would often rehearse in empty beer vat warehouses).
Verbal Abuse,
Sick Pleasure, and
the Dicks also rose up from the same ranks. Released just two years after
Suicidal Tendencies' self-titled debut, another visceral, genre-defining debut of similar ilk,
Dealing with it will forever stand as
D.R.I.'s most compelling record during an often-misguided career. Taking the
Suicidal concept one step further,
D.R.I.'s
hardcore/
thrash-
metal hybrid,
Dealing with it reinvented the wheel by combining the humor and politics of
Suicidal's debut with the speed and trash of
Slayer's early records like
Show No Mercy and the
Haunting the Chapel EP. Embraced by skaters, punkers, and thrashers alike, ultra-fast songs like
"Mad Man" and
"Couch Slouch" effortlessly alternate with the hilarious, longer, chugga-chugga rants of
"Nursing Home Blues" and the monstrous
"I Don't Need Society." The latter, featuring the classic rant "Your number's up/you have to go/the system says I told you so/stocked in a plane like a truckload of cattle/thousands of us sent off to die/never really knowing why" culminating with the ever reliable rant, "f**k this system, it can't have me, I don't need society." Worth having. [This version of the album includes bonus material.] ~ John Franck
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